Jurassic Park

I'm working on a screen play for Jurassic Park XX. After 19 failed attempts for humans and dinosaurs to coexist, developers decide on the next best thing. . .


A THEME PARK WITH CHICKENS!

They are T-Rex's closing living relatives so it is a perfect evolution.*

But naturally, the chickens also give into their wild instinct and the climax of the movie will be a chicken flying a helicopter and me doing some Die Hard kind of action moves to save the world from chickens gone wild.

You see, I love my chickens, but I also know they would probably be happy to eat me. My chickens are carnivores. I saw a dozen eggs at the store that highlighted the fact that the chickens were vegetarians and I felt sad for those chickens. It's not as bad as being stuck in a tiny cage, but I'm pretty sure after watching my chickens rip a shrew apart that they are one step away from Velociraptors.

If I only deliver leftover veggies to them from dinner they give me the look like the old lady in the "Where's the beef?" commercials. Meat makes them happy.

It sounds like a good idea to have vegetarian chickens who don't fly helicopters, but that's not who they are (well, maybe the helicopter part).

I'm slowly figuring out how to love things and people for who they are without making them conform to how I think they should be. I'm slowly releasing my agenda

for this world and figuring out how to delight in the mystery of the moment.

How do I enter relationships without insisting people or chickens be who I want them to be?

My answer to myself: Meet people where they are and let the relationship transform us both. 


That's my new motto next to "Don't let chickens have access to helicopters."

The problem is that some folks, or maybe I should say all folks some of the time, act like assholes or worse are incredibly dull.

How do you meet behavior like that without letting it sap all your energy or destroy any chance at relationship? 

There are times we need to confront behavior that is destructive to relationship, but it is for the sake of the relationship, not for my agenda or romanticized notion of who that person should be.

There are times I have to give my beloved creatures a good talking to for digging up the garden or wandering into the neighbor's yard. Some of the confronting is for safety, but some is because destroying my plants does test my love for them and make me think about dissolving our relationship, especially when they follow it up with pooping all over the porch or screaming at me through the dog door. I have to set good boundaries so I can keep loving them.

I'm pretty enamored with a recent quote I found by Leonardo Boff about Dostoevsky. He writes, "For Dostoevski, the opposite of the beautiful was not the ugly, but the utilitarian; the spirit of using others, and thereby stealing their dignity."

Meet people where they are and let the relationship transform all. Let go of who you think they should be and allow yourself to discover who they are. Confront what is destructive and forgive what is annoying. That's how the chickens and I coexist.

* The analysis shows that T-rex collagen makeup is almost identical to that of a modern chicken - this corroborates a huge body of evidence from the fossil record that demonstrates birds are descended from meat-eating dinosaurs," said Angela Milner, the associate keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London. "So, it is very satisfying that the molecules have provided a positive test for the morphology." (Who Are You Calling Chicken by Alok Jha, The Guardian)

Read More Books

Two things:

1. I learned at a blogging workshop to number things

2. I think that's silly, but I also learned to set a schedule for writing so I commit to writing every Monday. 

Blogging on a regular basis brings me delight and pushes me. Most of it is a "waste of time", but I've found that often  right in the middle of wasting time I see things new or make connections I otherwise would have missed. 

Here's the thing that feels a little self-promoting and weird. My blogs don't always fit into Facebook's algorithm so people don't get notification that I've posted something if it doesn't fit into what you normally read. I know it's slightly embarrassing to admit that you read this blog, but I've added a button so you will get notified when I post about my next favorite bodily function or chicken story that doesn't fit your demographic.

3. I hate tennis shoes. Seriously, I am self-conscious when I wear tennis shoes so when I ran into a door at the Festival of Faith and Writing I couldn't laugh it off like I normally would, but suddenly felt horrifyingly embarrassed and almost cried. 

The flight of ciders also made up for the door incident

It's all because of the tennis shoes. I struggle matching colors anyway and I don't understand how to coordinate them with the rest of my clothes, but I'm also strangely fascinated by how they make my feet look so I tend to stare at them. Hence, why I ran into the door and nearly knocked myself silly.

4. Other than that incident, the Festival of Faith and Writing was tremendous and inspiring. Often clergy continuing education events tend to be soul sucking. You go, hear the church is dying, get several tools to help it survive, and then return to the real world of death and dying. I tend to walk away with a mix of guilt and despair, which is why I go to the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids. This celebration is mainly librarians and I get to be inspired, stretched, and imagine a different way to tell our story.

Here are some of the authors and books I walked away with:

Kwame Alexander told delightful stories about being affirmed in his being, even in a world that so often discounts young African-American men. He spoke of his friendship with Nikki Giovani, one of my favorite poets, and had us giggling hard. I picked up both Crossover and Rebound but I refuse to stand in line to get books signed.

Nikki Grimes was a hoot and a half and I bought Words with Wings because of her eloquence in defending the power of day dreaming.

Kate Bowler could be my new favorite person. I'm going to encourage everyone to buy Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is a rabbi who's written some fabulous resources for teaching children Bible stories in a way that you don't have to unteach them. I bought three books from her that I hope to incorporate into our storytelling.

Carrie Newcomer is a fabulous musician and storyteller so you should buy her CD right now, but I don't think people buy CDs anymore.

5. Read more books and listen to more music. Turn off the TV or computer and curl up with a book. In some ways, I think that's the healthiest thing we can do to sustain the church. Read, daydream, imagine.

Labyrinth

It takes about four miles of hiking to get my brain to rest. I finally stop running lists and for the four miles back my brain can wander to more fun places, like singing Long Black Veil in response to the wild winds.

Hiking is good for my brain, but the labyrinth is good for my heart. 

The church has a beautiful Chartres labyrinth we lay out in the sanctuary through Lent. It was created about six or seven years ago by a whole host of folks connected with the church and each experienced the process as a slightly different metaphor.

People can get a little freaky about labyrinths and their role in one's faith journey. I'm not a freak about it. I am a freak about many things, but this isn't one of them.

The labyrinth is a lovely metaphor for life grounded in God's grace. There are no dead ends or wrong turns; there are twists and turns but ultimately you end up in the middle where you can rest and delight in a warming sun beam. 

We had sun this year beaming into the middle of the labyrinth so it was especially delightful. We also had a crew of kids who enjoyed putting obstacles on the path, but it fit the metaphor well so I rarely picked them up. 

The funny thing this year is my beloved son found a mistake. 

There was a curve that missed getting drawn so a whole section of the labyrinth had been cut off. 

I've walked the thing over a hundred times and never noticed. It got fixed and was kind of a hoot this year to wander into places unexplored. 

And again a lovely metaphor because I feel that way in my life. 

I've gotten to wander into this unexplored territory being married to law enforcement. That's been a whole new reality and adjustment. There are teenagers in my house preparing to leave my home and venture on their own. That's a new adventure. Then there's these flashes of heat and irritation that leave me opening windows and snapping at things I've long ignored. I'm not sure what to call that.

When I feel discombobulated, I just keep imagining how all those unexplored sections are still grounded in and leading to grace. 

That metaphor lets my heart rest.